UNIT 1: SELF-REFLECTION

Structure

1.0 Objectives
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Understanding the Self: The First Step in Self-reflection
1.2.1 Self-Check
1.2.2 What is Self?
1.2.3 Exploring the Self-Concept
1.2.4 Our Self-Concept and Our Identity
1.3 Self-reflection {include Self-care}
1.3.1 UnderstandingSelf-reflection
1.3.2 Benefits of Self-reflection

1.3.3 Strategies for Self-reflection

1.4 Let Us Sum Up

1.5 Key Words
1.6 Suggested Readings
1.7 Answers

1.0 Objectives

This Unit will enable you to:

 Understand the concept of ‘self’ and how is ‘self’ different from ‘others’.
 Understand how the idea of self in not independent but connected with our very lives.
 Understand and apply the manner in which our identity affects our idea of self.
 Learn the benefits of self-reflection
 Apply self-reflection

1.1 Introduction

Think about your everyday experience / interaction. You meet different people – father, mother,
brother, sister, aunt, uncle, son, daughter, father-in-law, mother-in-law, green grocer/ vegetable
seller, teacher, relative(s), student, a casual friend, best friend, business partner and so on. The

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 Understanding the Self

way you feel or think about yourself – your self-confidence, comfort level, self-esteem etc.,
affects the manner in which you interact with other people. For example, imagine a very senior
member of a management body has asked you to meet her/him but has not given a reason. If you
are someone who generally is very confident about yourself and know that your work is in order,
meeting the senior member will not make you anxious. But if you are someone who lacks
confidence in yourself, then the idea of meeting a senior member will make you anxious because
you are likely to keep asking – “what have I done wrong?” or you may also feel anxious.

How we think about ourselves – weak or strong, happy or sad, confident or unsure, a doer or a
follower and so on is very important. The concept of “self” is the image that we have of
ourselves. According to Joseph A Bailey self-concept is generally thought of as our individual
perception of our behaviours, abilities, and unique characteristics—a mental picture of who you
are as a person1. For example, when you dress up well, you look in the mirror and like what or
who you see, you are likely to mentally say to yourself – “I look
good/smart/beautiful/handsome.” And then when you go out, this confidence in ‘self’ reflects in
the way you will walk or talk or even the choice of ‘venue’. But more closely, the ideas or
beliefs like “I am a good person” or “I am confident” or “I am an introvert” or “I am a leader” or
“I like to follow rather than lead” or “I am a risk taker” are all part of the concept of ‘self’. This
image of ‘self’ develops over time and is not uniform. It changes as we grow older and with our
experiences of the world and people around us.

Self-Reflection and understanding the self are two sides of the same coin. In order to ‘self-
reflect’, it is important to understand ‘one-self’ and in order to understand ‘one-self’ it is
important to ‘self-reflect’.

Understanding
Self reflection
the self

Once we understand the concept of ‘self’ and ‘self-reflection’, they can help our self-esteem,
improve our relationships with others, improve the quality of our lives and work, deal with
shyness or lack of confidence, make us more understanding of other peoples’ conditions and
more.
In this unit, we will first start by exploring the concepts of ‘understanding the self’ and ‘self-
reflection’. Then we will explore the strategies that we can adopt and use to improve through
‘self-reflection’.
1
Bailey, Joseph A 2nd. “Self-image, self-concept, and self-identity revisited.” Journal of the National
Medical Association vol. 95,5 (2003): 383-6.

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Self-reflection

1.2Understanding the Self: the First Step in Self-reflection

1.2.1 Let us reflect

Before you begin reading the Unit, here are a few questions for you to answer.

1. Who are you?

2. What makes YOU unique?
3. What are your strengths?
4. What are your weaknesses?
5. What are your short-term goals? Long term goals?
6. What are you worried about?
7. What are your VALUES?
8. What is your proudest accomplishment?
9. What is your biggest self-doubt or what is the biggest thing that you are uncertain about
yourself?
10. When you are feeling down, what do you do?

The above ten questions look easy. Maybe you think that you can complete all of them in 15

minutes. Absolutely… you can do that. But it is very important to STOP. Take a step
back. Ignore everything that may be going on around you. Take your time. Read each question
carefully. Think. Try and remember an example from your life that you can apply to that
question. Then write or draw your answer.
Look at the answers you have written or drawn. Does anything surprise you? Why? Did you
notice the difference in your responses, once you stopped, took a mental step back to think and
then wrote them?

In this exercise, you explored both ideas – ‘understanding the self’ and ‘self-reflection’. ‘Taking
a step back’ helped YOU to think deeply about YOURSELF.

1.2.2What is self?

In the simplest form the notion of the ‘self’ is the idea that we hold or have of ourselves. We are
not born with the notion of self. This idea that we have of ‘self’ (self-concept from now on) or
‘ourself’ slowly emerges and is shaped by the people around us, those who influence us, how we
are treated by others and how we treat ourselves, the family values and lifestyle, our economic
and social status, our gender and more. The notion of self-concept is a learnt one which is
constructed over time. Take a very simple example, when a parent tells a son that he is special
but does not say the same thing to the daughter, the son may think that he can do no wrong. On
the other hand, the daughter may spend most of her time trying to impress or please the parent
but may never be successful. And both the son and the daughter may continue to be influenced
by this parent’s attitude in both their work and their personal lives.

1.2.3 Exploring the Self-Concept

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 Understanding the Self

Carl Rogers a leading psychologist believed that humans have one basic motive, which is to
fulfil one’s potential and achieve the highest level of “human-beingness” we can. He identified
three components of ‘self-concept’.

 The view you have of yourself (self-image)

This is how we see ourselves. This is important for our mental well-being. To put
this simply, we might think or perceive ourselves as healthy, smart, intelligent, great
cook, creative and other positive characteristics. Some of us might associate a more
negative characteristic like not good enough, insecure, ugly, not worthy and more. In
short, self-image includes influence of our body image as well as personality.
Self-image affects how a person thinks, feels and behaves in the world. A person’s self-
image is affected by many internal and external factors – media, friends, parental
influences, fashion, praise, etc.

 How much value you place on yourself (self-esteem)

Self-worth or self-esteem refers how much we like, accept, value or approve of

ourselves. In short, it is what we think about ourselves. Self-evaluation and self-
reflection are important steps in order to have balanced self-esteem. We can have either a
positive or a negative view of ourselves. We can either have a high self-esteem or low
self-esteem; and both types of self-esteem or self-worth affects us. Let’s look at the info
graphic below. It explores only three consequences of high and low self-esteems.

Self‐acceptance

High self‐esteem Confidence in our

leads to own abilities

Positive outlook

Self‐esteem
Want to look/be
like someone else

Low self‐esteem Lack of

leads to confidence

Negative outlook

 What you wish you were really like (ideal-self)

Do you remember what you wanted to become when you were five years old? – A
doctor? A businesswoman? A world traveller? An actor? In your future, you wanted to be

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Self-reflection
like someone you admired because you felt and thought s/he was ‘ideal’ or ‘perfect’. This
is the ideal-self. But think again – when you turned 15 or 20 did you want to be that same
person who you thought was ‘ideal’ when you were five?
The ‘ideal-self’ keeps changing.

In conclusion,self-concept is the key to understanding the self. By understanding the self, we

find our own place in the world. It helps us differentiate between “I” and “others”. The three
components of self-concept: self-image, self-worth and ideal-self are also closely connected. All
of this form, affect and are reflected in our personality. They also give us our unique identity.

Self‐ self‐
image worth

ideal‐
self
1.2.3 Our Self-Concept and Our Identity

From the previous sections it is clear that there is a close connection between self-concept and
identity. Both are inter-dependent, dynamic, evolve and changes over time.

Take some time to complete the following Self-Check table.

Your Personal Identity Your Social Identity

In the column below, make a list of In the column below, make a list of things, or
characteristics that make you unique or those ideas that make you part of a larger group like
that make you different from others - your professional, cultural, familial etc. {for
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 Understanding the Self

example, your ethnic identity etc.}

After completing the table above, take a look at it. Think and note down the differences and
similarities of each ‘identity’. It is very clear from the two Self-Check Tables and the text that
the self-concept and identity evolve and change through our experiences with other people,
circumstances, opportunities, culture, the picture that we have of ourselves and more. We will
explore these in more depth in the following sections. Let us do this through another Self-Check.

Self-Check

Think about a quality/trait about yourself that you feel most proud of. Write this down.

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Give one reason why this quality/trait makes you proud of yourself. How did it influence your
attitude?

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Give an example where this quality/trait helped you.

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Now think of an incident that made you feel not very confident about this quality/trait. What was
it? What made you feel not great about this quality/trait?

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How did this incident change or influence the quality/trait that you were proud of?

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Self-reflection

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William Shakespeare wrote a poem “The Seven Ages of Man” for the play As you Like it. He
compared life as a drama which is played out on a stage. Every person according to Shakespeare
plays seven distinct roles (termed by him as seven ages). These roles begin at birth and end with
death. These seven ages are – infancy, schoolboy/schoolgirl, Teenager, Youth, Middle Age, Old
Age and Extreme Old Age. With each age, Shakespeare identified qualities and a way of life. For
example, for a teenager emotions like love or insecurity about love, heartbreak, depression and
doing well play an important role. For youth, finding their purpose, job and the desire to make
her/his mark in the world are very important. These make the youth enthusiastic and zealous.
They are more ready to express their views. In the 21st century teenagers and especially the youth
use social media like TicTok, Instagram etc. to assert this.

While we may not agree with just ‘seven ages’ of humans, we all go through similar stages. As
we grow older from infancy, our awareness of the world and understanding also increases. Our
experiences change us and these include (a) interaction with other people from different walks of
life (professional- general staff, colleagues, boss etc.; in-laws, older relatives and the younger
generation, service providers etc.), (b) our finances (c) our status, (d) even our religion and caste,
(e) health, (f) our biological and physical changes, (g) our emotional changes, (h) village, state,
or country we live in and more. Let’s look at two examples of experiences of same age group in
two different locations.

Influences on Identity 1: Growing up in different

Anita, 18 years old living in an Indian city

Anita being a girl started helping her mother or relatives in the household chores. She
went to school and played but as a girl she had additional responsibilities of helping in
cooking and cleaning. She has a brother who is almost as old as her. The brother has no
household responsibilities like Anita. It is acceptable that the brother doesn’t know how
to cook or clean. The family is middle-class with traditional outlook. But since the
family has limited financial support and is also traditional, there are high chances that
the family is going to prioritise investing more in the brother’s education and career.
Also, remember in India, girls after marrying usually live with the family of her
husband. Anita may be allowed or decides to work. If she is working in the same city,
then chances are that she will continue to live with her parents.

Rose, 18 years old living in Berlin, Germany

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 Understanding the Self

Independence and self-reliance are important qualities that are taught to children in
Germany from a very young age. Generally, both boys and girls are given chores that
they have to do – set the table for meals, take out garbage, clean the car, etc. To earn
their pocket money, children are encouraged to do small jobs in the neighbourhood like
– clear up the leaves from the neighbour’s garden or if it snows, then shovel snow from
the driveway etc. High school students often start working part-time either in chain
restaurants or in a field where they learn skills as well. In fact, high schoolers, often
move out of their parents’ house to live on their own. They often move to a different
city for college. Generally, it is also common for a married couple to live on their own
rather than with family. Rose too grew up in the same German culture. Her brother who
is of the same age is as independent as Rose. It is up to them if they want to go to
college or get a professional training.

After reading the lives and general experiences of Anita and Rose, how do you think their
experiences will impact their identity?

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Influences on Identity 2: Understanding our emotions

Self-Check

Task: Think of a difficult situation that you recently faced. Read each question carefully and
note down your response.

Objective: To understand the interconnections between our self-concept, identity and

experiences in formulating our responses to situations.

Extension: If possible, compare your responses with someone else.

Questions Your Responses

When did the situation happen? {be specific … last night, or day or date}

What happened?
(Describe the event)
Why did you think the situation happened?
(Identify the cause or trigger?)
How did you react?
(Describe your response)

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Self-reflection

How did that situation make you feel both

physically and emotionally?
(Try to identify as precisely as possible)
What did you do and say?
(Identify your action or behaviour)
To what extent were your actions motivated by
your own beliefs, personality or traits?
To what extent were your actions motivated by
emotional response?
Think and then answer. If instead of your
emotions, if you had prioritised thinking
rationally, would your actions be any different?
After completing this, read your responses. Is there anything that surprised you or you learnt about
yourself? How did you benefit from this exercise?

Conclusion ofUnderstanding the Self: The first step in self-reflection

To summarise each of us has a distinct and unique ‘self’ and this self evolves over time from our
babyhood to old age. Since self-concept is the image that we have of ourselves, it evolves
through our lives. We are influenced by our experiences, people we meet, our own emotions and
the world around us. Our self-esteem is closely connected with our self-concept. The connection
between self-concept and influences is very close. Through various Self-Checks, we have been
taking a step back in order to understand and experience the ideas of self-concept, and
influences. This ‘taking a step back’ is part of the larger process called self-reflection, which will
be the focus for the next section.

Check your progress 1

1. What is a self-concept?

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2. How is our image of ‘self’ formed? Support this with a personal example.

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 Understanding the Self

3. How are ‘self-reflection’ and ‘understanding the self’ connected?

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4. Give an example of an event that might raise the ‘self-esteem’ of a person. What could be the
possible consequences of high self-esteem?
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5. Why does our idea of ‘self’ change and evolve?

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6. Make a list of possible social identity factors? Pick any one of these to write and expand by
giving an explanation and example.
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1.3 SELF-REFLECTION

1.3.1 Understanding Self-Reflection

Let us look at a few quotes to see what scholars have said about self-reflection

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates (Ancient Greek philosopher)

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Self-reflection

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of

ourselves.” – Carl Jung (Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst)

“Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended

consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.” – Margaret J. Wheatley
(Author, community worker, speaker and leader)

“We don’t learn from experiences; we learn from reflecting on the experience.” –
John Dewey (American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer)

The above quotations are not by ordinary people but by scholars whose contributions in
philosophy, education and academia have been very significant. Their ideas have helped formed
the basis for understanding many fields. In simple words, self-reflection is like looking in the
mirror in order assess yourself, your ways of working; and understanding your motivations and
influences as a step to evaluating your reactions. You have read the phrase ‘taking a step back’ a
couple of times in this Unit. In the different ‘Self-Checks’ in the previous sections, you were
understanding about self-reflection. Self-reflection is described as ‘a person’s ability to reflect on
experiences, draw inferences about behaviour from these reflections and then use those
inferences to construct and develop representations of the self’ (see Dishon N, Oldmeadow JA,
Critchley C and Kaufman J, 2017).

Why is self-reflection important?

Self-reflection helps in developing skills and review the effectiveness of the same. If we don’t
self-reflect then we are likely to continue carrying on doing things, and making decisions as we
have always done. ‘Reflecting’ help us to question what we do and why we do it. This then helps
us to decide if there is a better or more efficient way of doing or feeling in the future. A good
way to understand this is by taking an example of cooking. If you are trying to cook something
new, you will first look at different recipes. Then you will cook. After cooking and tasting it, you
are likely to think or talk about it – what was good about it, whether it lacked something or if you
would like to add something to it. When you cook the same dish again, in the future, you are
likely to recall your ‘internal review’ and make changes in order to cook the same dish but make
it tastier. This ‘internal review’ is similar to reflecting. It helps you to think about something or
someone in a more critical manner to meet an appropriate end which is positive.

Whether at home or at work or in relationships, reflection is thus an important part of learning.

However, it is very important that when reflecting, while we think about positives and negatives,
the process is used in a positive or constructive way. In other words, take for example, you have
had an argument with a colleague. If you self-reflect, then you are likely to think about why you
and the colleague argued the way you did. Was either of you having a bad day? Was the subject
that led to the argument a sensitive one? Self-reflection will help you to examine this incident
through different perspectives. However, finally the learnings from this self-reflection should be
used in a manner which is constructive and not to put the other person or yourself down. This is
constructive self-reflection. It has the capacity to improve relationships.

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 Understanding the Self

Reflection is a generic term for those intellectual and affective activities in which
individuals engage to explore their experiences, in order to lead to a new understanding
and appreciation. — Bound, Keough, & Walker, 1985

Self-reflection is a process that it not and should not be restricted to just personal and
professionalexperiences but is an essential component in almost all aspects of life. The analogy
of looking oneself in the mirror is often used for self-reflection

1.3.2 Benefits of Self-Reflection

According to Glaze (2001) reflection can improve understanding of the context you work in,
transform perspectives, deepen understanding and help you re-appreciate the job you do.

Help Strategize

The essence of self-reflection is self-assessment, it can help devise a strategy to pursue a certain
outcome. This outcome could be achieving a personal goal (gaining or losing weight, learning a
skill, completing a training, starting a business etc.) or a professional one. It can help by enabling
you to prioritise.

Spot Opportunities

SWOT matrix or SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique to help a person or

organisation identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats  SWOT. Even though
this is used for business management and is not without its set of limitations, it can be adopted
for other uses as well. We will speak about strengths and weaknesses a little later on. Self-
Reflecting gives you space to identify opportunities, both long and short terms, and also pre-
empt the challenges or threats. It helps you to understand your behaviour, beliefs, reactions,
assumptions, values and so on.

Emotional Intelligence

Self-reflection and the ability to do so is a sign of good emotional intelligence. In order to self-
reflect one has to use multiple lenses or perspectives to look at oneself. We often assume that
emotions have a very small role to play in our professional or student lives. But in reality, our
emotions frequently mould our responses. Using different lenses help to tap into our emotions;
and this can help us to understand our weaknesses, attitudes, reactions, motivations and
responses better. In other words, self-reflecting upon how one behaves and what thoughts enter
one’s mind in response to events and people in the world allows one to see what one needs to
work on.

Improved Relationships

Self-reflecting helps us to understand how we treat others by thinking about how this is based on
our own identity, values, approach to caste, religion, class, views on gender and gender roles, etc.
as also on our own insecurities or uncertainties or lack of awareness or lack of knowledge. This

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Self-reflection

in turn enables us to see how and why we treat others the way we do. It can influence our
interactions.

Growth and Productivity

Self-reflection helps in focusing the mind and energy on a particular goal. This helps in making
us sharper and more productive. This in turn makes us more productive by removing uncertainty
about our targets and our ability to reach them.

Clarity and Decision Making

One of the major benefits of self-reflection is clarity, which in turn leads one to become a better
decision maker. A quick glance at the various benefits explored in the previous points also
slowly develop and support this particular benefit. By conducting this internal check, we become
aware of our gaols, fears, shortcomings, strengths etc. This can help devise an optimum way to
achieve results.

Overcome Conflict

Self-reflection is one of the key strategies to conflict resolution because one has to use multiple
lenses and perspectives to understand the situation and people. For example, have you ever had
an argument with your relative, friend or colleague for a long time, only to realise that you both
perhaps agreed on most of the points or realised that there was a complete breakdown of
communication? Imagine if you had simply thought calmly and asked the other person to sit
down and asked some reflection-based questions like, what was the main concern or what made
that person feel the way she/he did, etc. Was there a possibility that the conflict could have been
handled more easily? Maybe you could have arrived at a mutually agreeable solution or decision.

1.3.3 Strategies for Self-Reflection

There are many strategies that one can adopt for self-reflection. We have been through many in
different ways throughout this Unit. We will highlight two more in the following section.

Strategy 1: Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle

Graham Gibbs, an academic researcher, developed, in 1988, one of the most famous cyclic
models of reflection. It is a cyclic framework of six stages exploring an experience: description,
feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan. Each stage has a set of corresponding
guiding questions to ask yourself. This is one of the many models that are available. We will
explore a couple of them.

Gibbs’ reflective cycle can be used to reflect either a stand-alone experience or a situation you go
through frequently, for example meetings with a team for collaboration. Let’s take a quick
overview of the six stages of the cycle.

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 Understannding the Selff

If you nootice, the six

x stages of the
t Gibbs’ Reflective
R C
Cycle are no longer unfaamiliar to uss. We
have beeen using the six terms thhrough our unit.
u But in this
t framewoork, all six are
a brought under
u
one proccess. Below is a table, in which thee guiding quuestions for each stage are a mentionned in
Column 2. In Colum mn 3 is the space
s for Seelf-Check. Read
R the cues and write your experiience.
The idea is to learn by
b self-reflecction throughh Gibbs’ fram
mework by applying
a it.

Self-Cheeck

Column n Colum
mn 2: Stagee and Guideed Colum
mn 3: Appliccation
1: Stagee Questioons
Thinkk about a grroup projectt that you did
d in
the past. Use the guided quesstions in Coolumn
2 andd answer theem. You maay not be abble to
includde all the pooints.
1 Descriiption (of th
he experiencce)

What haappened?
When an nd where didd it happen?
Who waas present?
What didd you and thhe other peopple
do?
What waas the outcom me of the
situation
n?
Why were you theree?
What didd you want to
t happen?

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Self-reflection

2 Feelings (your thoughts or

feelings during the experience and
how they may have impacted the
experience)

What were you feeling during the

situation?
What were you feeling before and
after the situation?
What do you think other people
were feeling about the situation?
What do you think other people feel
about the situation now?
What were you thinking of during
the situation?
What do you think about the
situation now?

3 Evaluation (what worked and

what didn’t. It is important to be
objective, fair and honest. Do
include both positive and
negative)

What was good and bad about the

experience?
What went well?
What didn’t go so well?
What did you and other people
contribute to the situation
(positively or negatively)?

4 Analysis (done in order to make

sense of what happened and
extract meaning)

Why did things go well?

Why didn’t it go well?
What sense can I make of the
situation?
What knowledge – my own or
others (for example academic
literature) can help me understand
the situation?

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 Understanding the Self

5 Conclusion (time to make

conclusions about what happened.
Summarise your learnings and
think about alternatives)

What did I learn from this situation?

How could this have been a more
positive situation for everyone
involved?
What skills do I need to develop for
me to handle a situation like this
better?
What else could I have done?

6 Action Plan (helps you to think

about what you would do
differently next time, if in a
similar situation)

If I had to do the same thing again,

what would I do differently?
How will I develop the required
skills I need?
How can I make sure that I can act
differently next time?

Your Read what you have written down in Column 3. Reflect on it. In the space below
self- note down what you have learnt about yourself from the Self-Check. Were you
reflection surprised by any thing? Why? What did you learn about yourself? How did this Self-
Check help you?

Strategy 2: Keeping a Springboard

A springboard is a flexible board from which you dive into a swimming pool. In writing, a
springboard technique is often used to help in planning and developing an idea. You can use this
technique for a personal project or a group project. It can be moulded in many ways. The leading
questions below are one of the springboard strategies to help you start with self-reflection. This
activity is taken from Journal to the Self: Twenty-Two Paths to Personal Growth - Open the
Door to Self-Understanding by Writing, Reading, and Creating a Journal of Your Life by
Kathleen Adams (1990).

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Self-reflection

In your journal or notebook write down these questions on a few pages. Every alternate day,
make a point of completing these self-reflections.

 “Today I feel __________ years old. [6? 16? 60?]

 I am excited about…
 Three things I want to accomplish [today, this week, this year, in my lifetime] are…
 Where am I in the movement of my [life, business, relationship, career, etc.]?
 What’s the most important thing to do right now?
 My ideal work environment would include…
 How am I feeling right now?
 The most important skill I need for [a task] is…
 What resources are available to me?
 How can I best use my resources?
 What I value most in my relationship with _________ is…
 How do I feel about [upcoming event]?
 I’m happiest when…
 What turns me on?
 What turns me off?
 I’m proud of myself for…
 How am I using my power?
 I’m alone, and it’s…
 Today was a [great, lousy, hectic, etc.] day.
 Why am I feeling so [angry, sad, paranoid, etc.]?
 What do I really want?
 How am I experiencing [joy, indecision, rage, etc.]?
 My biggest [secret, fear, wish, etc.] is…”

Excerpt From: Adams, Kathleen (1990). “Journal to the Self: Twenty-Two Paths to Personal
Growth - Open the Door to Self-Understanding by Writing, Reading, and Creating a Journal of
Your Life”. New York: Hachette Book Group. This book has very good strategies to help in self-
reflection.

Look back on the Springboard questions of Adams. This list is somewhat different and yet
similar to the various self-reflecting exercises that we have been doing. However, keep this
Springboard list for a month. You don’t have to fill it every day. After a month, take some time
and go over the entries. Reflect how this process changed your attitude and its impact on the
quality of your life.

Kathleen Adams has another strategy which is very useful. It is known as List of 100. Below are
a few lists which you would start.

1. 100 Things I’m Grateful For

2. 100 Ways I Could Nurture Myself

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3. 100 Ways I Beat Myself Up (Sabotage Myself)
4. 100 Things I’m Good At
5. 100 Things I Like About Myself
6. 100 Blessings
7. 100 Things I’ve Accomplished in My Life
8. 100 Things I’m Feeling Stressed About
9. 100 Things I ’d Do If I Had Time
10. 100 Things I Need or Want to Do
11. 100 Things I Want to Accomplish in the Next X Months
12. 100 Things I Want to Do Before I Die
13. 100 Things That Are Going Right
14. 100 Things That Are Going Wrong
15. 100 Reasons I Don’t Want to Stay Married/Committed
16. 100 Fears I Am Having Right Now”

Excerpt From: Adams, Kathleen (1990). “Journal to the Self: Twenty-Two Paths to Personal
Growth - Open the Door to Self-Understanding by Writing, Reading, and Creating a Journal of
Your Life”. New York: Hachette Book Group.

Check your progress 2

1. What is self-reflection? Explain why it is important.

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2. Give at least four benefits of self-reflection.

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3. What is SWOT matrix? How can you use SWOT in your own life?

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4. Identify which two benefits of self-reflection you feel are most important. Give a justification
for your choice.

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1.4 LET US SUM UP

In this Unit on Self-Reflection, you started by learning and then recognising how and why it is
first important to understand the self. The idea of self or self-concept does not develop in
isolation but is constantly influenced by the world around us. Many of us, in fact, don’t realise
how outside influences affect our identity, which in turns affects how we respond to situations
and others. Equally connected to understanding the self is the practice of self-reflection. This
practice helps us to become aware of ourselves, others and gain a more nuanced understanding of
our actions, feelings, motivations and also help in managing our personal as well as professional
lives. The key is to take the many Self-Checks that have been shared in this Unit and practice
them.

1.6 SUGGESTED READINGS

Adams, Kathleen (1990). Journal to the Self: Twenty-Two Paths to Personal Growth - Open the
Door to Self-Understanding by Writing, Reading, and Creating a Journal of Your Life. New
York: Hachette Book Group.

Ashley, Greg C. and Reiter-Palmon, Roni (2012). "Self-Awareness and the Evolution of
Leaders: The Need for a Better Measure of Self-Awareness". Psychology Faculty Publications 7.
URL: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/psychfacpub/7

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Blackburn, Bill (2019). “Self-Awareness: The Key to Resolving Conflict Effectively,” in

Academic Leadership. URL: https://academyleadership.com/news/201902.asp

Gibbs G (1988). Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further
Education Unit. Oxford Polytechnic: Oxford.

Wignall, Nick (August 12, 2019). “The Elements of Self-Reflection,” on Medium. URL
https://medium.com/the-understanding-project/the-elements-of-self-reflection-cdf7aa70ed2e

Yocco, Victor (2016). Design for the Mind: Seven Psychological Principles of Persuasive
Design. New York: Manning Publications.

1.7 ANSWERS

Check your progress 1

Please note that these answers and examples are suggestive and indicative. Learners
have the freedom to formulate their own answers.

1. What is a self-concept?
Self-concept in simple term is what and how each of us see ourselves as. For example,
you can see yourself as strong or even insecure. And this will affect how we behave,
interact or make decisions.

2. How is our image of ‘self’ formed? Support this with a personal example.
Our image of self is formed and affected by many factors. These could be internal or
external. Some examples of this are a girl born in a traditional Indian middle-class family
with very traditional parents and friends is more likely to follow the cultural rules about
her life choices like education, profession, clothes, marriage etc. even though they may
not make her happy. This can be true for a boy born in a similar background. He may
face different kind of pressures.

3. How are ‘self-reflection’ and ‘understanding the self’ connected?

‘Self-reflection’ and ‘understanding the self’ are very closely connected. Self-reflection is
the ability of a person to take a step back or look into self to understand more critically
the choices a person makes or attitude adopted. This in fact then helps us to understand
the self-more clearly.

4. Give an example of an event that might raise ‘self-esteem’ of a person. What

could be the possible consequences of high self-esteem?

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Many examples can be given for an event that might raise the self-esteem of a person –
getting a promotion or getting admission into a course or getting a new thing or getting
married or losing weight or gaining weight etc. A balanced raise in ‘self-esteem’ is
healthy and can help a person become more confidence and overcome insecurity or gain
approval. It could also make a person feel valued. This in turn could lead to improvement
in quality of life and further motivate a person.
5. Why does our idea of ‘self’ change and evolve?
Our idea of ‘self’ changes and evolves for many reasons. As we grow older, we gain
more experience and we are also exposed to more ideas, people etc. Our circumstances
change too. The world around us keeps changing. All of this influence and mould our
idea of ‘self’, and leads to its evolution.

6. Make a list of possible social identity factors? Pick any one of these to write
expand by giving an explanation and example.
For this question, learners should look at Section 1.2.3 Self-Check and design the answer.

Check your progress 2

1. What is self-reflection? Explain why it is important.
Self-reflection is the exercise of undertaking self-assessment. It is like looking in the
mirror at your own reflection very carefully in a critical manner in order to analyse your
own actions, motivations, plans and so on. This self-reflection is important as it helps us to
understand why we do what we do or say or hear or even enjoy the things that we do; and
their consequences on us. In a lot of ways, a healthy self-reflection can help us improve
ourselves. For example, at the end of the month I might realise that I am unable to save
money. After self-reflection, I might find the different examples where I am spending the
money buying things or doing things just to feel happy or to show off. Self-reflection can
help me in identifying what motivates me to spend money carelessly and then I might
devise a strategy to avoid this habit.

2. Give at least four benefits of self-reflection.

Four benefits of self-reflection are:
a. It can help in achieving a personal goal.
b. It can first help identify a gap in work/opportunity or goal; and then help in planning a
Strategy.
c.It can help increase emotional intelligence
d. It can help resolve conflict.

3. What is SWOT matrix? How can you use SWOT in your own life?
SWOT matrix or SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique to help a person or
Organisation identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It can help us
understand our behaviour, beliefs, reactions, assumptions, values and so on

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4. Identify which two benefits of self-reflection you feel are most important. Give a
justification for your choice.

a. One benefit of self-reflection is its ability to help resolve conflict. [Learner to devise a
justification for this benefit after self-reflection]
b. Secondly, self-reflection can help attain personal goals. [Learner to devise a
justification for this benefit after self-reflection]

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